Momentum pleases Button

"It's good to finish in the points in the first race and have three points under my belt already," said Button. "It's the first time I've finished with points in Australia.

"My start wasn't particularly great and it was very slippery out there, but I managed to hold on to fourth for some time.Ralf [Schumacher] was able to get past me in the pitstop when we had a delay with the refuelling nozzle. Then Montoya got by on the circuit. I think we need a little more in the way of race pace but it's a solid start to the season.

"We had good reliability but then so did everyone else, which was quite surprising given the predictions. It's tough but at least we were up there with the competition throughout. We need to keep the momentum going now and hopefully we can look forward to better things in Malaysia in a couple of weeks."

Teammate Takuma Sato had an eventful race with a couple of off-track excursions on his way to ninth place.

"It was quite a busy race. The start was good but then I was squeezed into the first corner and made contact with the Renault. At the first pitstop we found some damage to the nose and we changed it at the second stop. Immediately the car felt much better and I was able to consistently lap a second quicker than in the first stint, so it had clearly upset the car.

"I'm a little bit disappointed with ninth to be honest, but I'm pleased we got both cars to the finish in the first race. The reliability of all the teams has been quite surprising but everyone has done a lot of work in testing over the winter. I'm sure we can do better in Malaysia."